Tom Riddle and the Goblet of Fire
by drakensis
Summary: Harry has a power that Voldemort does not know of and through deception, victory.


Ron yelled as he pulled a sheet of parchment out from the stack he'd been leafing through. "Look!" he shouted, excitedly. "I've found it!"

Unfortunately, he hadn't thought to move some of the stack piled on top of the particular parchment he desired, which resulted firstly in the parchment tearing and secondly in a significant amount of the piled parchments tumbling on top of him.

"Oh Ron..." Hermione sighed as she saw him, surrounded by old essays, still holding a scrap of parchment.

"I've got it, Hermione!" he shouted, as if the girl wasn't standing right in front of him. "I've..." he trailed off, looking at the tear in the paper. "Er... oops."

Hermione counted to ten. In Latin. "Well, if there's one then there are bound to be others," she said determinedly. "We'll just have to keep looking."

Ron sighed and started shuffling through the essays.

"And Ron?"

"Yes, Hermione?"

"Next time you think you've found it - call me before you try to grab it?"

.oOo.

Minerva McGonagall was reluctant to face a second Hogwarts Feast without Dumbledore to oversee it. The Welcome Feast had been hard enough. So rather than joining the students in the pumpkin-decorated Great Hall, she was sitting in the chair opposite her desk, looking up at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore and wondering what the rest of the year would bring.

For that matter, she had to wonder what tonight would bring. It was Halloween, after all, and for the last few years, that had always been when matters had begun to drag young Mr Potter into... well, call them matters that she would prefer no one so young have to face. He was still only seventeen...

She frowned. Was that a light beneath the door at the back of the office?

From her chair behind the desk she wouldn't have been able to see it at all - but there was definitely a faint line of light along the bottom edge of the door. Frowning, she rose to her feet and crossed the office quickly, gathering the mantle of her authority around her with the ease of long practise. If someone was up to some foolish prank then she would have a word or two to say to them.

Behind the door, there was nothing but the winding stairs that led further up the Headmaster's tower (even though there was now a Headmistress, it would not have occurred to anyone that the name should be changed). But there was a definite light from above, where no one should be. Not from one of the rooms, but from the very top of the stairs, where an eerie blue-green light could be seen through an open hatch that should have been both closed and locked - the hatch leading out onto the roof of the tower.

Minerva stumbled as she took the first few steps in the darkness. Cursing herself under her breath as she caught herself, she instead used the familiar magic and an instant later it was a cat that bounded easily up the stairs, eyes gleaming in the shadows and glittering dangerously when the light of the candle hit them.

The top of the tower was flat and about as large as the Astronomy Tower's roof. As Minerva peeked around the edge of the hatch, she saw that the area was lit - not by more candles but by blue-green flames rising from an aall too familiar ornate cup. Around the roof, observing the Goblet of Fire with bated breath, were seven figures robed and hooded against the chill of late October. The flames turned crimson and a gusher of flame propelled a scrap of parchment into the air.

A slim hand caught it. The grey-haired professor had seem the same hand catch more than one Golden Snitch on the Quidditch Pitch below. There was a certain innate rightness to Harry Potter being in the middle of this... whatever it was.

"Representing Beaubatons," announced Harry soberly. "Gabrielle Delacour." He held the slip out to the smallest of the seven figures and the young girl - she could not be more than a first year at the prestigious French school and Minerva's gorge rose at the thought of the child being involved in whatever this was - accepted it with a look of quiet purpose in her eyes. She retreated back into the protective arms of the figure next to her, Minerva's sharp eyes clearly identifying the older woman as Fleur Delacour in the fiery light, as the goblet lit again.

"Dierk Schneider," Harry read from the next scrap of paper. But it was the deceptively ungainly form of Viktor Krum who accepted the parchment, passing it to a slim figure standing further back from the Goblet. The platinum hair visible within the hood was too long to be that of Draco Malfoy, but otherwise the resemblence was striking - Minerva recalled that Lucius Malfoy's aunt - a contemporary of hers - had wed a German wizard of the Schneider family. A love match, if her memory did not betray her.

The goblet lit again. It had been three years to the day since the cursed thing had produced Harry's name, starting the whole chain of events that had returned Voldemort to life. Harry caught this parchment with the same ease as before, but there was a line of tension on his face that had not been there before. "Representing Hogwarts," the Boy-Who-Lived declared, "Shall be Tom Marvolo Riddle."

One of the other participants clenched his fist in victory. That would be Mr Weasley, Minerva concluded absently as she looked back and forth. Fortunately for her nerves, Voldemort did not appear to be present and instead, Harry simply tucked the parchment away in his robes.

The last person standing on the tower was easy enough to guess. Hermione Granger pushed back her hood, leaving her face clearly visible in the blue-green light of the Goblet. "Are the selected Champions acceptable to all three schools?" she asked formally.

"They are," Krum grated.

There was a faint "Yes," from Fleur Delacour.

"Hogwarts accepts," Harry finished. Minerva's feline face drew grim. How dare he presume to speak for her school?

"The first task, Hermione announced - apparently she was in the role of chief judge, Minerva noticed - "Requires the three Champions to fly from this tower to the astronomy tower within five minutes. You may begin."

Immediately, Gabrielle darted to a small stack of brooms piled at the side of the roof. Pulling out a small, ladylike Nimbus Parsifal, she mounted it and lifted off from the roof, her robes billowing in the wind. The slim young man who Minerva took to be Dierk Schneider, the Durmstrang Champion, simply stretched out his arms and was replaced immediately by a black bird - a raven, she guessed - that took off, flapping vigorously into the night sky.

"Right," Harry said, going to the brooms himself. "Let's be off then."

He and Viktor took off first, followed quickly by Fleur and Ron. Hermione lagged slightly, and Minerva took the opportunity to bound forwards and land on the bristles of the school broom that the Head Girl was using. Unaccustomed to flying, Hermione was too focused on keeping the broom moving to notice the extra weight behind her as she made her somewhat unsteady way across the roof towards the Astronomy tower.

After that somewhat nerve-wracking flight, Minerva managed to jump off as the broom crossed the edge of the tower, and ducked into the shadows of the parapet. She might have managed to get away with it if it hadn't been for the two sharp-eyed Seekers among those gathered.

"Her-my-neenie..." Krum asked uncertainly. "Vos that...?"

Harry groaned. "Professor McGonagall? Is that you?"

Minerva emerged from her hiding place, melting back into her birth form with accustomed ease. "Well Mr Potter... I hope that you and your friends have a better excuse for being up here than you did last time you and Miss Granger were caught leaving the Astronomy Tower."

There were giggles from Fleur and Gabrielle, both of whom had apparently learnt the notorious extra-curricular uses that the Astronomy Tower was used for on occasions. Viktor looked slightly shocked.

"It wasn't like that," Hermione protested, red-faced. "We were smuggling a dragon to Romania."

"Ees that what eet is called now?" Fleur asked archly.

"They were only eleven," Ron said comfortingly to Viktor.

"That would make them very young to have been starting careers as, hmm, international criminals, wouldn't it?" Dierk observed doubtfully. It was the first time that Minerva had heard the young animagus speak and his English was much better than Viktor Krum's.

Minerva frowned, and was glad to see that the expression had the usual effect upon the youngsters, who quietened down. "In deference to your supposed maturity, Miss Granger, perhaps you could suggest a reason that I should not place you all in detention... at least until Miss Delacour and Mr Schneider's parents can collect their underage offspring?"

"Please Professor," Hermione exclaimed. "We're trying to stop You-Know-Who."

"And how, Miss Granger, will entering V-voldemort in an intramural contest, impede him in any way? Particularly since he is not, any longer, a student at Hogwarts."

"Well, Professor," Harry asked. "Just supposing... what would have happened three years ago if I'd refused to enter the Tournament? Not turned up for any of the events, I mean."

Minerva frowned in thought. "That would have been rather complicated," she said at last. "I couldn't tell you without a better idea of the Arithmancy involved - Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector could probably tell you. But I don't imagine that it would be pleasant for you. Once your name comes out of the Goblet..." She paled. "Oh my. Once V-voldemort's name came out of the Goblet -"

"He was in a binding magical contract," Harry finished. "Whether he knows about it or not." He produced the slip of parchment from his robe and held it out. "His name, written by his own hand, was placed in the Goblet yesterday, along with the most powerful Confoundus charms we could manage."

Minerva looked at the little group and then squared her shoulders. "Please continue, Mr Potter. It is rather late for you all to be outside."

.oOo.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known to the Wizarding World as the Dark Lord Voldemort, smiled cruelly as he watched his followers revel. There were so many of them... the mere dozen survivors from his old inner circle had been joined by scores of their children and other disaffected youths.

A shiver went through him, for the third time that evening and he scowled suddenly, sending a ripple of fear through the crowd. He didn't know what was causing it, but instinctively, he knew that it was nothing he would relish. Only the requirement that he maintain his face in front of the Death Eaters kept him from closeting himself to scry out the cause and determine the nature of the effects.

"Lucius," he hissed, and Death Eaters relaxed around him as they realised that they were not an immediate target for his wrath.

A pale, aristocratic face appeared from under one of the many black hoods being worn in the room. The anonymity of hoods and masks was an effective way of preventing a sole mole from exposing all his Death Eaters. As a result to unmask in front of the assembled Death Eaters was either a mark of great favour - an implicit guarantee of the Dark Lord's protection - or of great disfavour - creating vulnerability. Or both, sometimes. Those high in Voldemort's regard needed to fear their fellows as much as they did the bumbling of the Ministry or Dumbledore's decapitated little Order.

Lucius's standing, it had become well known, was not strong.

"Your son, Lucius, has proven to be a disappointment," Voldemort observed coldly. "You assured me that he was counter to Potter amongst the Hogwarts students. That you had raised him in the old traditions... that he was everything that could be desired in a Slytherin: ruthless, ambitious and pure of blood." He clapped his hands together, the sound carrying across the luxurious chamber. "I trust that you can at least be sure of his blood?"

In fairness, there was little doubt of young Draco's bloodlines. At least in appearance, he was very much his father's son. But fairness had nothing to do with this.

"My lord -" Lucius began. He almost bit his tongue when Voldemort's wand appeared in his hand.

"I did not give you permission to address me, Lucius," Voldemort almost purred. "Crucio."

There was a long silence as everyone stared at the tip of the wand. The spell had thus far failed to appear.

"Crucio," Voldemort snapped. "Crucio!"

Nothing.

"Crucio!"

Lucius howled in agony as Bellatrix's spell caught him in the chest and he crumpled to the floor. AN instant later, there was a shout of "Reducto!" and Bellatrix tumbled backwards to the floor, her face a bloody ruin where the spell had blasted into it.

Voldemort's face would have paled if it could have. More than loyalty, more than hate, the Death Eaters were bound to him by fear. Remove that...

"Loathsome HALFBLOOD!" screamed Lucius from the floor, raising his wand. Like good little marionettes, Crabbe and Goyle produced theirs and spells began to fly.

As a result of his Horcruxes, Tom Riddle could not die. He was not, however, immune to pain and more than half the spells being cast by some of the Darkest Wizards in Britain were aimed at him. He experienced more pain in the next minutes than was pleasant to contemplate. His magic having failed him, he could summon the will to do nothing more than to pray to a God he did not believe in that his body would fail him swiftly, rendering him bodiless and relatively safe before the multiple Crucios stripped his sanity from him.

A tide of darkness rose up around him and the last sight he had was of Severus Snape being dragged down by Greyback as the Potions Master tried to fight his way out of the room.


End file.
